by Jeffrey Rice, Research Analyst

How organizations perceive email marketing ROI at budget time, by maturity phase


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In this week’s chart, we have segmented data by phase of email marketing maturity. Each phase represents how systematic an organization is in its approach to email marketing. The phase of an organization’s maturity is determined by the process they use (or don’t use) to plan, execute, measure and report on email marketing programs.

The purpose of this segmentation is to demonstrate the disparity in the performance of email marketing programs by organizations in each phase of maturity, and the relationship between the phase and an organization’s email marketing success.

How executives perceive email marketing's ability to produce a return on investment will determine the investment they are willing to make. Organizations in the strategic phase of email marketing maturity are about twice as likely to believe that email marketing is producing an ROI as are their counterparts in the transition and trial phases. Consequently, strategic phase organizations are more than twice as likely to increase email marketing budgets liberally in 2011 for continuous improvement.

At the other extreme, organizations in the trial and transition phases of maturity are much more likely to believe that email marketing is basically free and intend to keep it that way. These organizations are destined to get what they pay for.

For additional research data and insights about email marketing, download and read the free Executive Summary from MarketingSherpa’s 2011 Email Marketing Benchmark Report.